richard holbrook, working on behalf of the obama administration tried to get other people to run against president karzai. there was a reason for that because they wanted to see a vigorous afghan democracy, but there was the position that we really wanted to see president karzai defeated. robert gates, in his book, basically said as much. they wanted to send somebody to defeat karzai because they did not want him. but those kinds of disagreements, when they are aired in public, such as in esther gates and his otherwise fine book, are memorable in afghanistan. they read our press. we have public disagreements with the afghan president, it is something that contributes to a negative relationship. i will not put all of this on mr. karzai. he has made some big mistakes and failed to rein in the corruption including from his own family, but we contributed as well and we need a fresh start. host: we have this tweet, from the pottery barn theory, we broke it so we have to pay to fix it. guest: we broke it and we broke it in the 1980's for strategic reasons. the soviets broke it, they invaded af